Importance of the Internet in Modern Education

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Keywords: online education, distance learning, importance of internet

IMPORTANCE OF INTERNET IN MODERN EDUCATION

Things are changing rapidly as the world is progressing. in this modern world people are using advanced machines to do their work. Computer is the most advanced machine that people use to do their work. This particular machine is used in every field of life. Advanced techniques are used with help of computers to diagnose dangerous diseases. Advanced manufacturing techniques are used with the help of computers to manufacture the products. Computers are extensively used in the field of engineering. In past one machine was used to perform only a single task but now-a-days with the help of computers you can perform different tasks at one time. In modern business environment computers have special importance. A huge amount of time is saved due to multitasking. In business terms time is money, so if you are saving time you are saving money as well. Due to multitasking the costs of businesses have reduced. What is the meaning of multitasking? It means that running several programs simultaneously. Since modern computers typically execute instructions several orders of magnitude faster than human perception, it may appear that many programs are running at the same time even though only one is ever executing in any given instant. Multitasking may slow down a computer that is running several programs at one time. Many advanced computers are designed to share their work across many CPUs. This process is called multiprocessing. This technique is generally used in powerful computers such as super computers, mainframe computers and serves. Thus, the entire world is fully dependent on computers. Due to this factor demand of computers has been increased.

Computers have changed the way we work, be it any profession. Therefore, it is only but natural the role of computers in education has been given a lot of prominence in the recent years. Computers play a vital role in every field .

How Is Distance Learning Different From Online Education?

Distance learning institutes are serving a very important cause by enabling the less privileged sectors of the society to pursue higher education of their choice. The Distance learning program has come a long way as a medium of providing education to the professionals as well as the others who could not get chances to avail regular education. For this reason, a skeptical opinion about the prospects of distance learning courses has taken a bright turn.

Distance learning is the modern term used for conventional correspondence courses. An off-campus educational program is just like a traditional one except the student will not have to spend as much, if any, time away from their homes to attend classes. This is a great for option for the working people who can not think of quitting their jobs in lieu of studying further.

Although some people tend to associate distance learning with online education, a thin line of distinction exists between the two. While all the online degree programs belong to the family of the distance learning program, it is improper to term the distance-learning courses as the online ones. This is because the technology used in both the modes may be different in some cases. An online mode of education can be termed as a system which allows you to complete your bachelor degree or even master degree with the regular updates from the university you have enrolled yourself into. In case of a distance learning program you dont have any option to interact with you mentors or and clear you doubts or queries.

In India, benefits of the distance learning program are more than the online education system. India is a developing country, so it not possible for the majority of the citizens to surf internet to complete their higher studies. Distance Learning Courses in India is increasingly becoming popular. The easy access to any of the distance learning courses enables a person to pursue education from any state or university according to his or her preference. As the fees of these courses are lesser than that of the regular courses, distance-learning courses in India have also become popular in the rural areas. There are, at present eleven open universities in India that provide distance education for those who are interested in taking up any of the educational courses in accordance with their wishes.

Education is a dynamic process in any society, and experts agree that it takes a wide range of different communication styles to get across to all the different learning styles that exist. As our modern world evolves and becomes more sophisticated, so do our learning institutions. And one way technology is being used to continually adapt to the complicated learning process and make it more efficient than ever is by using digital signs for education.

Here are just 5 ways that interactive digital media is being used in our top learning centers.

Bulletin Boards

Digital platforms are an extremely efficient means for replacing the drab bulletin boards of the past and create a vibrant, attention-getting visual display with video and audio for maximum effect. The bulletin boards were a waste of paper that was always being thrown out and after time even the boards themselves broke down and needed to be wasted. A video wall does not produce this kind of waste and gives information in way that will be noticed and not easily forgotten.

Navigation

Bigger universities are finding that interactive displays are excellent tools for assisting navigation around new universities for students and visitors alike. Complex mapping systems that plan out your route with a couple touches of the finger and concierge displays delivering essential information provide a great way to communicate with someone who is unsure of where to go and what to do. Less freshmen stumbling around with a dazed look on their face and less wasted time for employees giving directions for the hundredth time in a day.

Donor Recognition

Many of our top universities survived under the support of generous donors who wanted to give back to society or had a special place in their heart for that particular university. Interactive displays provide creative means of recognizing those contributions in a modern, eye-catching way that does wonders for the image of everyone involved. Donors feel a significant effort has gone into showing appreciation for their efforts and universities show they are embracing modern technology and staying ahead of trends.

Posters

Part of education involves other ways of communicating with students--such as informing about societal issues, advertising necessary services relevant to college students, and simply providing entertainment venues to keep college life exciting and welcoming. This is why you so often see posters plastered across the campus. Digital signs once again take away the need for wasted paper and communicate much more effectively. And instead of tearing down all the old stuff again and again, you can simply enter new data into online software from any comfortable location.

Emergency Systems

We all wish university life consisted of nothing but learning, growing, and having good times together. Unfortunately, bad things do happen, and certain aspects of modern culture have made tragic universities occurrences all to commonplace. And any venue this size needs an organized emergency system. A network of digital signs can provide that immediately, broadcasting images and announcements all prepared in advance.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Online Education

Online education is to learn via a computer with internet connection. Getting an online education has become tremendous in these days. It provides opportunity to new educational program for students of all ages no matter if you are looking for a diploma or degree program or some specialized certification to supplement your knowledge. People considering online education should carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages; here are the major advantages and disadvantages of online education that you must know.

One of the major advantages of online education is the convenience. In today's busy lifestyle, most people have no time to have traditional learning to take time off from your schedule to attend regular and routine educational institution. Online education provides access to learn at any time, allows the flexibility to schedule your learning, what you need to have only computer and internet connection at home.

Online education is also a great choice for those students with physical handicaps, which may prevent them from travelling to a college or university. Similarly, if you are shy or linguistically-challenged, learning in an online course may be a great option to learn in a class. Besides that, students can learn from anywhere in the world through online education, it benefits students who wish to study in a different country, they can learn different culture and knowledge from different country.

In the contrary, one of the major disadvantages of online education is having the discipline of time management. If you can't able to manage time and schedule, online education will not be a suitable method of learning for you. You will probably perform better with the structure of traditional learning. If you are this kind of person, letting yourself to study at your own place and can't concentrate and be aggressive with your own schedule, you are not the right candidate for online education.

Another disadvantage is the lack of oral communication. Since online education encourages communication through e-mail or text chatting only, you do not have opportunity to hear questions and discussion from other students. You may be deprived of scope to improve your oral communication skills.

Before you pursue your online education, think twice that are you able to communicate well through words and texts? Online education isn't for everyone, it depends on the kind of attitude and personality you are.

e-Learning initiatives in India in last few years

Arguably, the most talked about Indian e-Learning project is the NPTEL project. NPTEL (National Programme onTechnology Enhanced Learning) was conceived in 1999 and funded by MHRD (Ministry of Human Resource and Development). Under the project, 7 IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and IISc (Indian Institute of Science) Bangalore, worked on the Rs 20.5 crore project from 2003 to 2006, to create 112 video courses and 116 web courses. All these courses are on undergraduate engineering topics, and made to meet most of the requirements of an engineering undergraduate program (at any Indian university). These courses are available to students, working professionals and colleges (both government-aided and private) at virtually no cost or very low cost .

Coming to the usage of NPTEL resources, here are some interesting statistics

Number of visitors In the initial 10 month period since September 2006, there were 580,000 visitors to the site and of which 160,000 registered .

NPTEL site usage now As per Alexa site, 21% of visitors to iitm.ac.in website visit the NPTEL section. The iitm.ac.in website has a rank of 9813 in India. ( http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/nptel.iitm.ac.in)

NPTEL video course details from YouTube As per YouTube site, it is YouTube India's most subscribed channel with 10,148 subscribers and 353,632 views of the channel ( as on 22nd January 2009, http://in.youtube.com/user/nptelhrd)

One of the observations is that there is lot of interest (more so during initial launch period), but it is not getting converted into results. The students/ institutions still need to be able to convert this into a usable experience, and improve their learning.

Another commercially successful initiative is MBA Programs being conducted for Working Professionals using Satellite Video technology, by institutions like IIM-Calcutta, IIM-Calicut, IIT-Delhi, IIFT, IIT Bombay, XLRI etc. This was done by these instituions using services provided by companies like HughesNet (formerly Hughes Direcway),

Reliance Infocom and now NIIT Imperia. The author could not find reliable information on number of students using these programs, but it is estimated at close to 10,000 annually. HughesNet itself has 2000 such centres in India. This is a successful example in the sense that it met the demand for quality education for working professionals in the city where they are located. It has been an economically viable model for the institutes, the technology providers as well as the students. It will do well to enlist what made this a success -\

Premier institutes like IIMs, IITs, XLRI etc provided faculty who take the classes, run the program, ensure quality and institutes provide certificates to students. Institutes spent valuable faculty time and effort in creating and upgrading courseware specifically for these programs during the last 10 years or so.

The vendor companies opened centres across India, for students to come in and view lectures and attend classes.

Satellite-based video technology is used to beam live lectures from the institute studio to the centres. Learning Management System software is used to supplement this for giving assignments, reading material and collaboration among students and faculty. The companies also set-up studios in partner institutes to enable lecture beaming.

And as we see, it was a comprehensive solution encompassing quality content, great technology, and services (marketing, infrastructure etc) to meet student need.

Sakshat Portal from MHRD is another well-known e-Learning initiative. Modelled on lines of MIT OCW, it has been designed and developed by IGNOU for Ministry of HRD, as a repository of eBooks, eJournals, Digital Repository and other student-relevant information [4]. Study material is classified into various topics.

Another related initiative again from IGNOU is eGyankosh another digital repository for learning resources. It has been developed with the objective of long-term preservation of learning materials.

Some of the other lesser known e-Learning initiatives/ projects in India are -

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham This initiative launched in 2004 uses satellite technology to connect 4 campuses of Amrita University located in 4 cities of South India. There is a collaboration with US universities also, and the project was expected to expand to 200 universities. It was based on technological support from ISRO [

BITS Pilani It has established a virtual university, with DIT sponsorship. BITS has been one of the pioneers in distance education. BITS has been providing courses for working professionals in distance education mode leveraging technology .

Jadavpur University It started a new inter-disciplinary Masters in Multimedia Development course in2000-01 as a distance education course using print material, CD ROM, and web-based learning environment. Technology was provided by CDAC Kolkatta and CMC.

Aligarh Muslim University It worked on a project in 2006-07 to take its distance education program online, starting with a few courses which are industry-relevant.

Central Institute of English and Foreign Language, Hyderabad It had a project for online learning software set-up and usage in 2006.

Many other universities and colleges had had small projects/ initiatives where they bought software, hardware and other technology products, got content development done for e-Learning launch. It included the likes of Hyderabad University, Kerala University, Terna College Mumbai, MDI Gurgaon, etc.

Remarks

Based on the survey results, several suggestions are offered to improve the quality of web-based instruction for the statistical educations. It will be a useful guide for the best role of the internet in statistical education

The highest priority needs are the improvement of hardware and network environment. Students need more fluent voice service and image file. The drawback is that we need a huge memory.

Providing of initial training and continual support to students and instructors.

Adoption of professional instructional design strategies. It is better to develop new paradigm of teaching statistics. For example more high technology computer based method, team teaching, problem based learning system etc.